If there’s one thing Main Street has in common with Wall Street, it’s a common dislike for one of the most hated words in the finance industry — fees. And you can avoid them by employing one of the financial lexicon's favorite words — free. For individual investors, carefully researching investments through the use of free tools can eliminate potential fees wasted on brokerage advice, research, and botched trades. Here are five of the best free sources on the web for researching investments. (See also: Investing With Your Values)

1. Morningstar

A bastion of the investment community, Morningstar offers free members partial access to scores of independent research. Gratis members can help themselves to continually updated information on investments from mutual funds to ETFs, as well as broad spectrum economic and market commentary.

2. Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo! may play second fiddle to Google when it comes to web browsers, but Yahoo! Finance remains at the top of the pack where free up-to-the-minute stock market pricing and data is concerned. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen brokers and fund managers at firms turn not to expensive custom financial software, but to Yahoo! Finance for pricing and performance data. Amidst a plethora of opinion-driven financial blogs and financial journalism, Yahoo! Finance provides hard data on investments in a simplified form, something that never goes out of style.

Favorite Feature: Tons of free historical market data and custom chart tools on almost everything with a ticker symbol.

3. The Motley Fool

Back when AOL was still cool, the Motley Fool emerged from the dot-com boom and quickly became one of the most popular websites on AOL for individual investors. Today, the Fool offers a broad variety of financial services, but still lives by its motto — to educate, amuse, and enrich. While I may not always agree with the advice from Fool.com, it’s a valuable resource for those looking to get a variety of viewpoints on investing. Articles are often intelligent, witty, and enjoyable to read. And the Fool offers a social media component, allowing fledgling and experienced investors to share ideas and investment picks.

Best for: Everything from advice for beginning investors to broad spectrum investment commentary.

Favorite Feature: The Motley Fool CAPS Community, where members research stocks, rank stocks, and share ideas.

4. Investopedia

When I first started working in Alternative Investments, my mind hit a big blank every time I heard investment jargon like “mezzanine” and “xyz” thrown around in meetings. A mezzanine? What were these guys doing talking about architecture? Enter Investopedia, which provided me with a crash course in investment terminology. While some of the site's other features are lackluster, Investopedia’s searchable dictionary of financial terms is a boon to individual investors.

Best for: Novice and experienced investors who need a quick overview of an investment concept or term.

Favorite Feature: The searchable investment dictionary, which features a definition of terms and a brief overview of the concepts behind them.

5. Fund Fact Sheets

Buried in the websites of mutual fund companies and investment firms are “fact sheets” or “tear sheets,” one-page marketing tools designed to provide an overview of the fund’s holdings and past performance. These are often in PDF format and offered for free to prospective investors. For those looking to research a specific ticker symbol, fact sheets offer invaluable information on an investment’s risk and historical returns.

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Carl Lassegue #1

Thank your for the advice. I'm looking to start investing on my own but my knowledge is limited. I am going to start using these free tools to educate myself so I dont just throw money blindly at stocks.

Carl: Everyone starts somewhere. Just research as much as you can, get a lot of different viewpoints, and then trust your gut instinct on what's best. You can always start with mutual funds and/or ETFs, too, which generally are less risky than stock picking. I personally don't own a lot of stocks, but some people love them. There's not necessarily a "right" or "wrong" way.

Drew: Yeah, definitely. I'm probably revealing myself as complete geek here, but I grew up on Morningstar thanks to my dad. And Investopedia rocks. I have seriously excused myself from group meetings, looked up theories and terms on Investopedia, and then quietly rejoined a few minutes later, feeling less clueless.

I like Business Insider, especially their Money Game section which has good commentary on the day's market action. However, I find their main page to be like a content dump (they're a content aggregator), which is pretty annoying because there's a lot of pointless stuff floating around.